


The UnChristmas

by captainofthegreenpeas



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Mollcroft, sex references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 02:19:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9413543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainofthegreenpeas/pseuds/captainofthegreenpeas
Summary: Molly and Mycroft share a festive day of peace to the world and goodwill to all men.…on 8th of October





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cocohorse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cocohorse/gifts).



Like many ingenious ideas, Mycroft came up with it. It was aimed to square a particularly tricksy circle: Molly loved Christmas. Mycroft loathed it.

Lacking Yuletide festivity was a Holmes family trait. Growing up, Christmas was an unenthusiastic but relaxed affair. It was special enough to technically give the brothers a day off from their studies (Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day did not have this privilege) although in actuality, learning continued as the boys were expected to start using their new presents… which largely consisted of books and writing materials, wrapped neatly in brown paper and expected to be unwrapped TIDILY, so that it could be reused. They either had a large, real Christmas tree decked with tinsel and baubles OR they had a large, traditional cooked Christmas lunch. Both was too much effort. If they had a traditional Christmas lunch, it was turkey OR Christmas pudding. Not both. They sat down to watch the Queen’s speech, in silence to hide the fact that nobody was actually paying attention. The most memorable Christmas for Mycroft was 1979, because that was the day the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, a key event in the Cold War. (Even as a boy, Mycroft kept religiously up to date on current affairs.) Once the boys became men and left home, Christmas became like laundry and finances: their own responsibility, as adults, to organise and oversee, without bothering their parents about it. No offence was taken if Christmas passed with only a text exchanged, if that. Phone calls, visits, cards, presents, all were optional. The Christmas after Sherlock was shot was an anomaly, an almost miraculous occurrence. Maybe Mummy felt that she should cherish family holidays in case the next time one of them was shot it was permanent. 

Mycroft hated the garishness of the common Christmas. The gluttonous unshaven glorified stalker who used his phenomenal powers of intercontinental teleportation to give strangers presents according to arbitrary definitions of “good” and “bad”. Advent, which spread the torture across the whole month. Mycroft had an instinctive detestation of countdowns, which made New Year near equal in odiousness to Christmas. To him and also to Sherlock, a countdown was synonymous with running out of time. The greatest of the atrocities, of course, were the jumpers. Dear God. The _jumpers_. Just to prove that Satan in his diabolical cruelty had not stopped at Santa hats.

The Diogenes Club was a safe haven, an island in an ocean of crackers and carols, although they yielded to tradition with a large, tasteful wreath on the door (but no astroturf-synthetic tree, thank all that is holy and pure.)

Molly on the other hand, loved Christmas. Tinsel, fairy lights, roaring fires, snow-piled windowsills. Her memories of childhood Christmases were of charades, when her Dad’s ridiculous guesses had her and Mum in stitches. Tiny snowmen with their snow-wives and snow-babies. Leaving a mince pie, a glass of sherry and a carrot with meticulous hospitality. Waking up on Christmas Day and peering over her patchwork quilt and crocheted blanket to see the pillowcase at the end of her bed bulging with presents. (Stockings are far too small. Father Christmas is supposed to be generous.) This was a logical continuity, given her love of all things cosy and cheery. Christmas was her second favourite holiday after Easter. (Rabbits, springtime and the triumphant resurrection of the dead. What more could you ask for from a holiday?)

Given that they were, in many superficial respects, very different people (though underneath it all, their similarities were occasionally quite remarkable), Molly and Mycroft’s love story was also a story of compromises: considered and respectful agreements combining mutual sacrifice and appreciation. I know, it doesn’t make the pulse race faster. But it was a sincere and practical act of love.

UnChristmas was one such compromise. In exchange for the freedom (and it often was a necessity, too) for Mycroft to work on 25th December, leaving room for any sudden and unanticipated crises to inevitably occur, Mycroft would spend a whole day of Molly’s choosing with her and she would have the final say on how it would be organised, as festive as she liked. That would be their Christmas. Working on Christmas Day also meant Molly was financially rewarded by St Barts for giving up leisure and family time to cut up paper-hatted corpses in a gloomy morgue, a happy side effect. 

Mycroft had met Molly on a Christmas and he remembered how miserable a day that had been for her. It had been a danger night for Sherlock, which meant he was filled with a familiar yet still desperate dread, so he too was miserable and alone.

In hindsight, they should have probably sought each other out, but they were still strangers back then. 

So on Saturday 8th October, Christmas was celebrated in one house in the country. 

It was Molly’s day, but she still kept Mycroft’s preferences in mind. No mistletoe; Mycroft did not like the idea of a plant dictating when and where he and Molly should be obliged to kiss. It did not suit them, their kisses were always spontaneous, whether on the face, hand, wrist or neck. They both dressed for the occasion. Molly, in a corduroy dress patterned with robins and warm cable knit tights, silver tinsel wrapped around the base of her ponytail, red and white candy canes on her charm bracelet and a little Christmas pudding on a chain for her necklace. Mycroft took prickly holly as his inspiration, with a soft dark green waistcoat and rich red wool cardigan. No tie, it was an informal occasion. His neck felt rather bare, but Molly’s arms looped around it soon rectified that problem.

Molly’s home was without a fireplace, but she substituted a wood-burning fire with a warm air fan. Every Christmas for the past five Christmases Toby had knocked over her Christmas tree (a different way each year!) so she had only  cheap plastic baubles left. No matter. She had a little cactus which she draped in streamers and filmy silver stars and put on the coffee table and it was almost as good. For Christmas lunch, not only did they have turkey and roast potatoes, they had cranberry sauce, soft carrots and parsnips, sage and onion stuffing, chipolatas, sweet crumbly buttery mince pies and golden Yorkshire puddings brimming with rich gravy (from her dad’s special recipe.) Molly had spent days practicing, so the crown jewel of any Yuletide dinner, the Christmas pudding, tasted as good as her effort. Mycroft brought the perfect red wine which smelled of home as she mulled it with spices. Diets were for winter. Mycroft had always ruthlessly competitive (to the point of being underhanded) when it came to pulling crackers with Sherlock, but now that he was an adult, winning didn’t matter ~~that much~~ so after several rounds it was a draw. Mycroft reading out the awful jokes in his most deadpan expression almost made them funny. When they were clearing the table, Molly swept the jokes into her pocket, to read them again on real Christmas and remember today.

For Mycroft, they watched _Blackadder’s Christmas Carol_ and _It’s A Wonderful Life,_ for Molly they watched the _Muppets’ Christmas Carol,_ and _Dr Who._

Occasionally during the TV marathon, one of them would sneak a glance at the other, to watch their reaction. Mycroft’s face was as solemn and attentive as always, with only briefly a wry smile, but she could tell that something under all that was moved at the most heartfelt scenes. _He rather likes George Bailey_ , she thought. _Maybe he wants to be like him, but he’s sure he can’t._ She’d seen him as more of a Clarence Odbody, but then maybe she was wrong.

Mycroft had quickly deduced that the companions were always Molly’s favourites.  _She always feels like the sidekick._ Is that what she had wanted to be to Sherlock? The sidekick?

After they ran out of festive viewing,  (Molly had vetoed Hitchcock’s _Psycho,_  Mycroft had vetoed _Frozen_ ) a peaceful and companionable silence fell. Molly edged closer to Mycroft on the sofa and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, getting an arm wrapped lightly around her shoulders in response. Gradually the kisses warmed up until Molly was unbuttoning his waistcoat while he neatly peeled off his cardigan. Mycroft removed his waistcoat while Molly quickly unzipped the back of her dress and was pulling it off her shoulders along with her bracelet. She was about to wrap her arms around him again when she realised she still had the tinsel in her hair. Molly moved to take it out, but Mycroft stopped her. 

“Leave it in,” he said, kissing her ear. “I’m feeling rather festive after all.”


End file.
